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Author. 



Title-. 



Book^ tX -jy. -. 



Imprint 



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REP O R T 



OBJECT TEAeeiNG, 



MADH AT lUi: M):K11N>; 1)1' XHI 



NATIONAL TKxVCIIERS' ASSOCIATION, 



H 1': L D A T 



H A K R I S B I- i: (i , r K X > s Y L V A X I A . , AT G U S T , 1 N i 



BY PROF. S . S . (I II E E N E 



I.v lii;UALl' 1)1' A CdMMrilEi; CONSISIMNO UK 



Bakna.s Seaks, I). L>., I'rovideuce, M. I. 
Prof. S. S. GHliKNli, " " 

J. L. I'lCKAUD, Jsupt. Schools, Chicago, 111. 
J. D. PiuLBRiCK, Supt. Scliobk, Boston, Mas;j. 
David N. Camp, state Supt. Scliool.';, Connocticut. 
II. Edwakus, I'rliicipiil Normal School, lllinoi-s. 
*'. L. Fknnkll, St. l.outs, Mo. 



BOS J' O N : 

PUBLISHED I!V MA-'SSACIKTSEirs TKACHEKS' AS$(X1 A'I'K )X. 

1 8 i> .-) . 



^ 



A 



REPORT 



OBJECT TEACHING, 



MADE AT THE MEETING OF THE 

NATIONAL TEACHEES' ASSOCIATION, 

HELD AT 

HARKISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA., AUGUST, 1865. 

BY PROF, sf 1^ GREENE, 

IN BEHALF OF A COMMITTEE CONSISTING OP 



Barnas Sears, D. D., Providence, E. I. 
Prof. S. S. Greene, " « 

J. L. PiCKARD, Supt. Schools, Chicago, 111. 
J. D. Philbrick, Supt. Schools, Boston, Mass. 
David N. Camp, State Supt. Schools, Connecticut. 
E. Edwards, Principal Normal School, Illinois. 
C. L. Pennell, St. Louis, Mo. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY MASSACHUSETTS TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION. 

1865. 



OBJECT TEACHING. 



In presenting the Report of a large Committee, residing at great 
distances from each other, it is but just to say that nothing like 
concert of action could be secured. 

All the members have been invited to express their opinions 
upon the subject of the report. The writer alone has visited Oswe- 
go for the specific purpose of obtaining the requisite facts. The 
opinions of the other members, so far as expressed, are the results 
of their individual experience, their observations of object teaching 
in Oswego or elsewhere, or of their general views of the possibili- 
ties of the system. These opinions will have their appropriate 
places in the report. An excellent communication from Rev. Dr. 
Hill, President of Harvard University, obtained at the solicitation of 
the writer, will also be referred to. It is but just to say that the 
opinion of Mr. Pennell, of St Louis, was, as a whole, somewhat 
adverse to anything like systematic object teaching. 

"Without further preliminary remarks, your committee proceed to 
inquire, 

1. What place do external objects hold in the acquisition of 
knowledge ? Are they the exclusive source of our knowledge ? 

2. So far as our knowledge is obtained from external objects as 
a source, how far can any educational processes facilitate the acqui- 
sition of it ? 

3. Are the measures adopted at Oswego in accordance with the 
general principles resulting from these inquiries ? 

That all our knowledge comes from external objects as a source, 
no one who has examined the capacities of the human mind pre- 
tends to claim. Yet no inconsiderable part springs directly from 
this source. Nature itself is but the unfolding and expression of 



* OBJECT TEACHING. 

ideals from the great fountain and store-house of all thought. 
With the Creator the ideal is the original, the outward form, its 
embodiment, or expression. The rose is a thought of God express- 
ed. "With us, the forms of Nature are the originals, the derived 
conceptions, our borrowed thoughts, borrowed since it is the thought 
of the Creator through the mediation of Nature, that, entering our 
minds, becomes our thought. His claim to originality is most valid 
who approaches nearest the divine source, observes most faithfully, 
and interprets most accurately. The page of Nature lies open to 
all. No intellect is so weak as not to read something, — none so 
profound as to exhaust her unfathomable depths. She has an as- 
pect to attract the gaze of early infancy. She rewards the restless 
curiosity of childhood. She repays the more thoughtful examina- 
tions of youth, and crowns with unfading laurels the profoundest 
researches of the philosopher. She stimulates by present acquisi- 
tions and prospective attainments. The well known of to-day is 
bordered by the imperfectly known, the attracting field of research 
for the morrow. What we know and can express is accompanied 
with much that we know, but have no power at present to express. 
Says the Rev. Dr. Hill, " It is the thought of God in the 
object that stimulates the child's thought." Again, " Text-book 
and lecture without illustrations frequently fail in giving just and 
vivid images, and generally fail in awakening that peculiar rever- 
ence which may be excited by direct contact with Nature ;" and 
again, " Nature is infinite in its expressions, and a natural object 
contains more than can be expressed in words. The great object 
is to teach the child to see and read more than you yourself could 
express in words." He gives an example in the case of his own 
child, which very forcibly illustrates this point. " I was walking," 
he says, " yesterday with my little girl, and showing her plants and 
insects and birds as we walked along. We were looking at lichens 
on the trees, when she suddenly and without hint from me said, 

* The maple trees have difierent lichens from the ash ; I mean to 
see if I can tell trees by their trunks without looking at the leaves.' 
So for a long distance she kept her eyes down, saying to the trees 
as she passed, * Elm, maple, ash, ijine,^ etc., and never failing. 
Now, neither she nor I would find it easy to express in words the 
difference between some of the elms and some of the ashes, though 



OBJECT TEACHING. 

the difference was easy to see." How emphatically true is this 
last remark ! and how true it is, that, even if these should at any 
time be clothed with language, other marks and distinctions would 
unfold themselves equally obvious to the eye, but quite as difficult 
to be expressed ! They express themselves to our senses, and 
through them to our understandings, but we lack words to bind 
them into our forms of thought. In other words, the forms of 
nature are filled with thoughts which are, at all times, revealing 
themselves to us in advance of our power of speech. The thought 
is infolded in the form, and the form unfolds the thought. It 
becomes ours only when we have experienced it. Human speech 
may recall, but can never originate it. To be known it must be 
seen, or realized by the senses. This necessarily lays the founda- 
tion for object teaching. 

But while Nature is thus the source of a vast amount of our 
knowledge, we have other sources, concerning which the most we 
can say of the objects in Nature is, they are only the occasions 
which call it forth. It springs spontaneously and intuitively from 
the depths of the soul. Such thoughts are not in the object, but 
in the mind. The object neither embodies nor in any way ex- 
presses them. It serves merely as the occasion to call them into 
consciousness. The boy drops his ball into the eddying current, 
and it passes beyond his reach. Though he may not be in a mood 
sufficiently philosophical to put into form the intuitive truth that 
one and the same object cannot be in the hand and out of it at the 
same time, yet his vexation and grief will sufficiently express it. 

That thought, no one will pretend, is in the ball or in the water, 
or is expressed by either. It is simply in the mind. 

So in the use of a native language, objects are most efficient aids 
in giving precision to the application of words, but they can never 
supply that wonderful power of discrimination in the expression of 
thought which marks the earliest and latest periods of life. Says 
the Rev. Dr. Sears, the chairman of this committee, " The elo- 
quent speaker does not, in his highest bursts of oratory, first select 
words and parts of a sentence, and from them afterwards construct 
a whole, but he begins with the whole, as a germ in his mind, and 
from it develops the parts. This power in language is instinctive, 
and can no more be achieved bv rules and canons of criticism than 



6 OBJECT TEACHING. 

can a "work of genius. A philosopher with his great intellect can- 
not learn to speak a language idiomatically, feelingly, and naturally, 
any quicker than a child. The understanding alone may make a 
linguist, or a critic, but not a natural, fluent, and easy speaker. 
Study and analysis aid in comprehending language, and in correct- 
ing errors ; but the native charms of idiomatic and touching Eng- 
lish come unbidden from the depths of the soul, from a sort of 
unconscious inspiration." 

Then, again, all subjects which are purely mental, especially 
those which have as their substance things hoped for, and as their 
evidence things not seen, are beyond the reach of object lessons. 
Thoughts, feelings, volitions, intellectual states ; all notions of 
space, and time, of esthetic and moral qualities ; all ideas of the 
absolute and the infinite, and finally, of God, as the unapproached 
and unapproachable fountain and source of all ; all these rise immea- 
surably above the realm of the senses. Indeed, the introduction of 
material forms would rather obscure than aid in illustrating many 
of their subjects. Of these we may form what is logically called a 
notion by combining their notce or characteristics, but we can never 
represent them to the eye of the mind by form or image. 

Objects may have been the occasion of calling up many of these 
ideas, but they are, by no means, the source of them. They address 
themselves to the interior consciousness alone, never to the senses. 
All knowledge springing from this source is rational, rather than 
experimental. Yet let it not be understood that it is entirely dis- 
sociated from physical forms. We use this rational knowledge in 
thousands of ways, in our connection with the external world. 

Let us pass to our second inquiry. So far as our knowledge 
has its source in external objects, how far can any educational pro]^ 
cesses facilitate the acquisition of it ? 

The thoughts of the Creator, as expressed in the outer world, 
would remain forever uninterpreted but for the presence of a 
knowing, thinking being, whose organism is in harmony with 
Nature. In early infancy, the minimum if not the zero point of 
intelligence, there is little or no appearance of such adaptation. 
"VVe see only a sentient being, impelled chiefly if not wholly by 
instinct. The highest form of observation results in mere sensation. 
It is akin to that of the brute. Soon, however, the child awakes 



OBJECT TEACHING. / 

to the consciousness that what he sees is no part of himself. He 
distinguishes between himself and the objects around him. His 
intelligent nature, which before existed only in germ, is called into 
action. He interprets his sensations, and these interpretations are 
called perccptw7is. Now commences the period for the sponta- 
neous cultivation of the perceptive faculty. Nature is ready with 
the proper aliment for its nourishment, and wise is that parent who 
sees to it that his child receives without stint. This is the period 
of greatest acuteness of this faculty, — the period when an instinct- 
ive curiosity supplies the place occupied, later in life, by a 
determined will. It is the period for absorbing knowledge mis- 
cellaneously. Blessed is that child whose lot is cast where Nature 
in her purest and loveliest forms daily feasts all his senses. Now 
is the time for gathering food for the higher faculties which exist 
either in embryo, or with only a feeble development. The knowl- 
edge gained is without order, and purely elementary. During 
this, which may be called the nursery period, little or no instruction 
can be given. The faculties act spontaneously, and with very little 
guidance from without. 

Even at this period the faculty of memory must be developed ; 
for the mind instinctively grasps at the whole of an object. Yet a 
single perception gives only the whole of one aspect. Be it a 
mite, a shell, or a mountain, it must have many aspects, — an 
interior and an exterior. It has parts and properties. After the 
mind has contemplated every one of these in succession, it cannot 
then form one complete whole without retaining all the previous 
perceptions. This process of taking together into one whole all the 
parts, aspects, and qualities of an object, and drawing off for the 
use of the mind a kind of photograph or mental picture, is called, 
as the term signifies, conception. It is the result of many varied, 
attentive, and careful perceptions in connection with memory. 
These conceptions, again, are laid away in the memory for future 
use. As they are recalled, and, as it were, placed before the eye 
of the mind, they have been variously denominated conceptions, 
concepts, ideas, notions, reproductions, or images. The name is 
of but little consequence, provided that we all understand them to 
be the results of perception, addressing themselves to our internal 
sight or consciousness, — that they are quasi-objects, internal reali- 



8 OBJECT TEACHING. 

ties, with corresponding external realities. And yet, in using the 
term conception or concept, as equivalent to the image mental 
picture or reproduction of a single object, we should be careful to 
regard it as a conception in its depth and intention, not in the whole 
breadth or extent of its application ; for to reach this requires 
the exercise of the higher faculties. 

In the period of infancy, before the power of speech is developed, 
children form those conceptions whose very existence stimulates to 
the use of language. They early become the occasions for dis- 
tinguishing between what is true and what is false, what has an 
internal seeming with an external reality, and what has an internal 
seeming without an external reality. 

At an early period the mind finds itself able to project forms of 
its own, to build castles and palaces and create gorgeous scenes, 
and dwell upon them as though they had a corresponding external 
existence. This power of imagination was formerly applied only 
to that faculty by which new scenes or forms were produced by 
combinations derived from actual conceptions. Latterly it is more 
generally applied to the faculty of forming images, whatever their 
source. 

Still another power manifests itself before much can be done by 
way of direct culture. It comes in answer to an interior demand. 
It is the power of language. Let us not mistake its functions, or 
the mode of cultivating it. It is not called forth by any human 
agency. It springs up spontaneously as soon as the pressure for 
utterance demands its development. 

While an external object may be viewed by thousands in com- 
mon, the conception of it addresses itself only to the individual 
consciousness. My conception is mine alone — the reward of 
careless observation, if imperfect ; of attentive, careful, and varied 
observation, if correct. Between mine and yours a great gulf is 
fixed. No man can pass from mine to yours, or from yours to 
mine. Neither in any proper sense of the term can mine be 
conveyed to you, nor yours to me. Words do not convey thoughts, 
they are not the vehicles of thoughts in any true sense of that term ; 
a word is simply a common symbol which each associates with his 
own conception. 

Neither can I compare mine with yours except through the 



OBJECT TEACHING. 9 

mediation of external objects. And then how do I know that they 
are alike ; that a measure called a foot, for instance, seems as long 
to you as to me ? My conception of a new object, which you 
and I observe together, may be very imperfect. By it I may attrib- 
ute to the object what does not belong to it, take from it what does, 
distort its form, or otherwise pervert it. Suppose now at the time 
of observation we agree upon a wo7'd as a sign or symbol for the 
object or the conception. The object is withdrawn ; the conception 
only remains imperfect in my case, complete and vivid in yours. 
The sign is employed. Does it bring back the original object ? 
By no means. Does it convey my conception to your mind ? 
Nothing of the kind ; you would be disgusted at the shapeless im- 
age. Does it convey yours to me ? No ; I should be delighted 
at the sight. What does it effect ? It becomes the occasion for 
each to call up his own conception. Does each now contemplate 
the same thing ? What multitudes of dissimilar images instantly 
spring up at the announcement of the same symbol ! — dissimilar 
not because of anything in the one source whence they are derived, 
but because of either an inattentive and imperfect observation of that 
source, or of some constitutional or habitual defect in the use of the 
perceptive faculty. What must be the actual condition of children, 
then, at the proper age to enter school ? 

At this very point lie the greatest deficiencies in the ordinary 
teaching of our schools. It may be reasonably supposed that children 
at the proper age to enter school have substantially correct concep- 
tions of the limited number of objects which fall under their daily 
observation. Of this, however, we must not be too certain, especi- 
ally if we have occasion to refer to marks or qualities which lie 
beyond the most common observation. We may use an appropriate 
term applied to some familiar object — some aspect of a tree as in 
case of Dr. Hill's little girl : the object may be a familiar one, the 
term may have been heard a thousand times, and yet the child may 
never have dreamed that the one applies to the other. What con- 
ception will the use of such a term occasion ? Because the term 
and its application are familiar to the teacher, he makes the fatal 
mistake of supposing them so to the child. His teaching, in conse- 
quence, is so far powerless. Words have no mysterious power of 
creating conceptions. True it is that the mind, at length, acquires 



10 OBJECT TEACHING, 

the power of divining the application of words from their connec- 
tion. But we must not presume this in children. 

Again, there is to every child the region of the clearly known, 
and the region of the faintly known, lying just beyond. All terms 
which apply to objects in this region have but a misty significance, 
and are often misapplied. Yet in the schoolroom they are liable 
to be used as if well understood. 

All terms relating to what is unknown to the child, whether 
scientific terms pertaining to latent properties of familiar things or 
familiar and popular terras pertaining to unknown things, are 
valueless when used by teacher or pupil. 

Again, the abstract definitions at the commencement of the read- 
ing lesson, or taken from the dictionary, are usually deceptive and 
unreliable ; they merely exchange an unknown term for another 
equally unknown. In other words, they do not create conceptions. 

The usual process of teaching children to read, or indeed any 
process, unless great pains are taken, tends to make the direct 
object of reading the mere utterance of words, and not the awaken- 
ing of conceptions. And hence arises that kind of chronic stupidity 
which so often marks all school exercises. Let any teacher first 
fill his own mind with a vivid picture of the objects which the 
words of a single lesson should call up, and then call upon his 
best class to repeat the language, carefully searching for their 
ideas, and he will find the deficiency in actual conception most 
astonishing. 

Again, the theory of teaching with many, if we may infer their 
theory from their practice, is to require the pupil to commit to 
memory the terms and statements of the text-book, whether they 
awaken conceptions or not, and to regard the standard of excellence 
as fluency of utterance and accuracy in repeating terms. 

Now against all this way of teaching language, object teaching, 
in any proper sense of the term, raises an earnest and perpetual 
protest. 

But what is object teaching ? Not that so-called object teaching 
which is confined to a few blocks and cards to be taken from the 
teacher's desk, at set times, to exhibit a limited round of angles, 
triangles, squares, cubes, cones, pyramids, or circles ; not that 
which requires the pupil to take some model of an object lesson 



OBJECT TEACHING. 11 

drawn out merely as a specimen, and commit it to memory ; nor 
is it that injudicious method which some teachers have adopted in 
order to be thorough, that leads them to develop distinctions which 
are suited only to the investigations of science ; nor is it a foolish 
adherence to the use of actual objects when clear conceptions have 
been formed and may take the place of physical forms ; nor is it 
that excessive talking about objects which makes the teacher do 
everything, and leaves the child to do nothing, — that assigns no 
task to be performed, — a most wretched and reprehensible 
practice ; nor, again, is it that which makes a few oral lessons, 
without anything else, the entire work of the school. 

But it is that which takes into the account the whole realm of 
Nature and Art, so far as the child has examined it, assumes as 
known only what the child knows, — not what the teacher knows, 
— and works from the well known to the obscurely known, and 
so onward and upward till the learner can enter the fields of 
science or abstract thought. It is that which develops the abstract 
from the concrete, — which develops the idea, then gives the term. 
It is that which appeals to the intelligence of the child, and that 
through the senses until clear and vivid conceptions are formed, 
and then uses these conceptions as something real and vital. It is 
that which follows Nature's order — the thing, the conception, the 
word ; so that when this order is reversed, — the word, the con- 
ception, the thing, — the chain of connection shall not be broken. 
The word shall instantly occasion the conception, and the concep- 
tion shall be accompanied with the firm conviction of a correspond- 
ing external reality. It is that which insists upon something 
besides mere empty verbal expressions in every school exercise, — 
in other words, expression and thought in place of expression and 
no thought. It is that which cultivates expression as an answer to 
an inward pressing want, rather than a fanciful collection of pretty 
phrases culled from difierent authors, and having the peculiar merit 
of sounding well. It is that which makes the school a place where 
the child comes in contact with realities just such as appeal to his 
common sense, as when he roamed at pleasure in the fields, — and 
not a place for irksome idleness — not a place where the most 
delightful word uttered by the teacher is "dismissed." It is that 
which relieves the child's task only by making it intelligible and 



12 OBJECT TEACHING. 

possible, not by taking the burden from him. It bids him examine 
for himself, discriminate for himself, and express for himself, — 
the teacher, the while, standing by to give hints and suggestions — 
not to relieve the labor. In short, it is that which addresses itself 
directly to the eye external or internal, which summons to its aid 
things present or things absent, things past or things to come, and 
bids them yield the lessons which they infold, — which deals with 
actual existence, and not with empty dreams — a living realism 
and not a fossil dogmatism. It is to be introduced in a systematic 
way, if it can be done, — without much form where system is im- 
practicable ; but introduced it should be in some way everywhere. 
It will aid any teacher in correcting dogmatic tendencies, by 
enlivening his lessons, and giving zest to his instructions. He will 
draw from the heavens above, and from the earth beneath, or from 
the waters under the earth, from the world without, and from the 
world within. He will not measure his lessons by pages, nor pro- 
gress by fluency of utterance. He will dwell in living thought, 
surrounded by living thinkers, — leaving at every point the impress 
of an objective and a subjective reality. Thoughtful himself, he 
will be thought-stirring in all his teaching. In fact, his very 
presence, with his thought-inspiring methods, gives tone to his 
whole school. Virtue issues unconsciously from his every 
look, and every act. He himself becomes a model of what 
his pupils should be. To him an exercise in geography will 
not be a stupid verbatim recitation of descriptive paragraphs, 
but a stretching out of the mental vision to see in living 
picture, ocean and continent, mountain and valley, river and 
lake, not on a level plane, but rounded up to conform to the 
curvature of a vast globe. The description of a prairie on fire, 
by the aid of the imagination, will be wrought up into a brilliant 
object lesson. A reading lesson descriptive of a thunder storm on 
Mount Washington will be something more than a mere conformity 
to the rules of the elocutionist. It will be accompanied with a 
conception wrought into the child's mind, outstripped in grandeur 
only by the scene itself. The mind's eye will see the old moun- 
tain itself, with its surroundings of gorge and cliff", of woodland 
and barren rock, of deep ravine and craggy peak. It will see 
the majestic thunder-cloud moving up, with its snow-white sum- 



OBJECT TEACHING. IS 

mits resting on walls as black as midnight darkness. The ear will 
almost hear the peals of muttering thunder as they reverberate from 
hill to hill. 

A proper care on the part of the teacher may make such a scene 
an all-absorbing lesson. It is an object lesson, — at least, a quasi- 
object lesson, — just such as should be daily mingled with those 
on external realities. To give such lessons, requires, on the part 
of the teacher, a quickened spirit, — a kind of intellectual regenera- 
tion. Let him but try it faithfully and honestly, and he will soon 
find himself emerging from the dark forms of Judaism into the 
clear light of a new dispensation. Indeed, this allusion contains 
more than a resemblance. 

The founder of the new dispensation was called, by way of emi- 
nence, " The Master." In him was embodied and set forth the art 
of teaching. He was the " teacher come from God " to reveal in 
his own person and practice God's ideal of teaching. And did he 
not invariably descend to the concrete even with his adult disciples ? 
Hence it was that the common people heard him gladly. 

Whoever will study the lessons given by him will see with 
what unparalleled skill he passed from concrete forms up to abstract 
truths. He seldom commenced with the abstract. " A sower 
went forth to sow ; " "A certain man had two sons ; " *' I am the 
vine, ye are the branches," — are specimens of the way he would 
open a lesson to unfold some important abstract truth. The best 
treatise on object teaching extant is the four Gospels. 

Commencing as if he discovered an interior fitness in the object 
itself, he would lay under contribution the wheat, the tares, the 
grass, the lilies, the water, the bread, the harvest, the cloud, or the 
passing event, and that to give some important lesson to his disciples. 

The abstract we must teach, but our teaching need not be abstract. 
We may approach the abstract through the concrete. We must do 
it in many cases. And the methods of our Saviour are the divine 
methods, informally expressed in his life. Let us reverently study 
them, and enter into the spirit with which they were employed. 
Such, in brief, are the fundamental uses of objects ; such the 
adaptation of the human mind in its development to external 
Nature ; such its growth, and ever increasing capacity to interpret 
the revelations of her myriad forms ; and such the wonderful power 
of language. 



14 OBJECT TEACHING. 

Let US now commence at the period when it is proper for a child 
to enter school. What is to engross his attention now ? In any 
system of teaching, all concede that one of his first employments 
should be to learn the new language — the language of iwinted 
symbols, addressed, not to the ear, but to the eye. And here com- 
mence the most divergent paths. The more common method is to 
drop entirely all that has hitherto occupied the child's attention, 
present him with the alphabet, point out the several letters, and bid 
him echo their names in response to the teacher's voice. By far 
the greatest portion of his time is passed in a species of confinement 
and inactivity, which ill comports with his former restless habits. 
Usually occupied in his school work but twice — and then for a few 
moments only — during each session, he advances from necessity, 
slowly, and this imprisonment becomes irksome and ofiensive. To 
one who is not blinded by this custom, which has the sanction of a 
remote antiquity, the inquiry naturally forces itself upon his atten- 
tion : — Is all this necessary ? Must the child, because he is learning 
a new language, forget the old ? May he not be allowed to speak 
at times, even in school, and utter the vital thoughts that once filled 
his mind with delight ? May he not have some occupation that 
shall not only satisfy the restless activities of his nature, but also 
shall gratify his earnest desire for knowledge ? Must he be made 
to feel that the new language of printed letters has no relation 
to the old ? Does he reach the goal of his school work, as too 
often seems the case, when he can pronounce words by looking at 
their printed forms ? Why not recognize in the printed word the 
same vital connection between the word and the thought as before ? 
Why not follow the dictates of a sound philosophy — the simple 
suggestions of common sense, and recognize the fact that the child 
comes fresh from the school of Nature, where actuals cenes and real 
objects have engrossed his whole attention, and have been the 
source of all that has made his life so happy ? If so, then why 
not let him draw freely from this source, while learning to read, 
nay, as far as possible make the very act of learning to read tribu- 
tary to the same end, and, at the earliest possible time, make it 
appear that the new acquisition is but a delightful ally of his pres- 
ent power to speak ? The transition from his free and happy life 
at home to the confinement of the schoolroom will be less painful 



OBJECT TEACHING. 15 

to him, and at the same time it will be apparent that the school is 
not a place to check, but to encourage investigation. 

Such inquiries as these have occupied the minds of intelligent 
educators who have ventured to question the wisdom of past 
methods. And they have led to the introduction of methods de- 
signed to occupy the time, and give interesting employment to the 
children. They have led to the introduction of objects familiar and 
interesting. Lessons are drawn from them which give the same im- 
pression of -practicalness and reality as the children received before 
the restraints of school life commenced. They lead to direct and ani- 
mated conversation between the teacher and the pupils. They are 
thus instrumental in revealing to the teacher the defective and 
scanty language of the children. At the same time they furnish the 
best means for cultivating the use of words. 

Lessons on objects do vastly more. By means of these the teacher 
soon learns that the children have not used their perceptive faculties 
to good advantage. Their observations have been careless and 
negligent. Their conceptions are consequently faulty. He has it 
in hispower nowto quicken this faculty, and correct defective con- 
ceptions. 

More than this, he has a plan for the future. The very points 
which he wishes the children to observe now are to become here- 
after the basis of scientific knowledge. Thus form and color, 
weights and measures, parts and qualities, are carefully observed. 

So, again, the very acquisition of the printed language becomes 
a kind of object lesson. The sound of a familiar word is given — 
its meaning is known and recognized — its elementary parts are 
drawn out and given both by the teacher and the pupils — the 
characters or letters, are applied and placed upon the blackboard. 
The sounds are combined into the spoken word, the letters into the 
printed, and the word, whether printed or spoken, is instantly asso- 
ciated with the idea. 

Work for the slate is now prepared ; the letters are to be made 
by the children, the words to be formed, theme aning to be made 
out. Reading from the slate or the blackboard is soon commenced, 
and it must have the peculiar merit of uttering thoughts familiar to 
the child. Any child can read understandingly what he has himself 
developed, and written with his own hand. The teacher develops 



16 OBJECT TEACHING. 

new thoughts ; but they are thoughts drawn directly from present 
objects, and recorded upon the board or the slate. They cannot 
be tortured by that blundering, drawling utterance which the 
school-room usually engenders and tolerates. 

Language can be cultivated from a new point of view. The 
spoken and written word can be compared. The errors of home 
and street life are more readily corrected. 

These several processes of developing and writing or printing 
keep all the children at work. Instead of having seven-eighths of 
their time devoted to irksome idleness the children have something 
to do, all of which contributes efficiently to, at least, three distinct 
ends — learning to read more rapidly and more intelligently, — 
advancing in useful knowledge for present purposes, — laying the 
foundation for future growth by a correct acquisition of the elements 
of knowledge. 

The habit which children thus early acquire oi putting on record 
what they learn or develop cannot be too highly valued. In the 
ordinary methods of teaching, they look upon all attempts at compo- 
sition with a sort of dread from which they seldom recover through 
their whole school life. But in this way from the beginning they 
grow up to the daily habit of composing their own real thoughts 
under the guidance of the teacher. 

But the chief and highest advantage of giving these lessons lies 
not so much in any one, or perhaps in all of these, as in its direct 
influence upon the teacher himself. It cannot be pursued even 
tolerably well without making it manifest to any one that the great 
object of teaching is to deal with ideas rather than to crowd the 
memory with words. He who can give an object lesson well 
is capable of giving any lesson well, because he has learned that it 
is the reality and not the expression of it that is the chief object to 
be gained. 

He who makes it his first, second, and last aim to teach realitieSf 
will soon discover two essential conditions. He must know the present 
capacity and attainments of the child, and then what realities are suit- 
ed to them. If it were not for one fact, our Primary Schools would 
be filled with a cabinet of natural objects as varied as those that fill 
halls of our highest institutions, and that is the simple fact that chil- 
dren can remember words as words, without associating them with 



OBJECT TEACHING. 17 

any idea whatever. They can use -words which mean much, yet with 
them they mean nothing. They can repeat them fluently — give 
emphasis to them in imitation of the teacher's voice. They can use 
them as though they really meant something. Yet more : — they 
can see that the teacher accepts them as though all was right. 
Now here is a double evil. The teacher is a stranger to the child's 
real condition, and the child supposes he is actually learning some- 
thing. 

One reason why so many are opposed to Object Teaching — 
or Reality Teaching, it should be called, — is the simple fact that 
they cannot readily free themselves from the impression that their 
knowledge of the subjects to be taught is somehow necessarily 
connected with the language of the text book. They have never 
tried to disengage it from the particular forms into which some 
author has moulded it. They use technical terms — and the worst 
of technical terms, because they know no other. There is an almost 
servile dependence upon the use of certain terms. And if the 
whole truth were known, it might appear that the idea is not suffi- 
ciently mastered to disengage it from the term. How can such a 
teacher do otherwise than cling to authority ? 

Yet the very essence of teaching lies in a living apprehension of 
the subject itself — such an apprehension as will enable the teacher 
to adapt his instruction to the child's real wants, — just what a text 
book, if good, cannot do. "Teach realities" is the true teacher's 
motto. To this he commits himself, — nay, crosses the river and 
burns the bridge. He is ashamed of his teaching if it is anything 
short of this. Hence, his ingenuity, his aptness, his versatility, his 
varied resorts in an emergency. He can teach with a text book, or 
without it. A text book in his hand becomes alive. It must be 
understood. 

Would you really know whether a candidate for the teacher's 
office is a good teacher or not ? You need not examine him with 
difficult questions in Arithmetic, in Algebra, in Geography, or in 
History. You need not examine him at all. But put him into 
the schoolroom, take from it every printed page for the use of the 
teacher or pupil. Give him black boards, — give them slates. 
Let him have ears of corn, pine cones, shells, and as many other 
objects as he chooses to collect, and then require him to give les- 



18 



OBJECT TEACHING. 



sons in reading, spelling, arithmetic, geography, and the English 
language. If the children come home full of curious questions, — 
if they love to talk of what they do at school, — if at the end of a 
week you find them thinking earnestly of their occupation at school, 
— deeply interested, — intent upon their school exercises, — then 
employ him, — employ him at any price, though he may not have 
graduated at the University, the Academy, or even the Normal 
School. Whenever needed, allow him or the children books. You 
are sure of a good school. 

How much is the spirit of that teacher improved who leads his 
pupil directly to the fountain of truth, and pays willing homage to it as 
truth ! Teachers may be divided in this respect into three classes. 
The first are those who are servilely bound to a text book ; who 
are scarcely able to conceive a truth apart from the ancient term 
employed to express it ; who never see it in its freshness ; sticklers 
for exact verbal recitations ; formalists, not to say dogmatists'; invet- 
erate advocates for authority, and firm defenders of what they re- 
gard as a healthful conservatism in education. 

The second are those who have so far broken away from the 
trammels of methods and forms as to investigate the truth for them- 
selves, who taste its vivifying power, draw from its pure sources, 
but who are anxious to promulgate and perpetuate, not so much 
the truth, as truth, as their own opinions of it ; who would make 
themselves the head of a party or school, having followers who 
think as they think, believe as they believe, employ terms as they 
employ terms, defend methods and forms as they defend them ; in- 
fluential they are and must be. They do good, they are lights 
in the profession. 

The third class are those who are anxious, — not that their 
pupils should see the truth just as they see it, but that they 
should see and experience the truth itself; — solicitous, not to propo- 
gate views, but living truth ; not the Rabbi who would reject the 
audible voice from above, if not uttered first to the priest, and 
through him to the people, but rather Eli bidding the young prophet 
elect, about to succeed him in office, to enter the audience chamber 
of the Almighty to hear the voice for himself, — nay, Eli direct- 
ing the hoij, his own impil, to return with a faithful report of what 
he hears. 



OBJECT TEACHING. 19 

These are they who rise to the true dignity of the teacher's pro- 
fession ; who lead their pupils into communion with nature, because 
she unfolds the thoughts of the Eternal One ; who reverence truth, 
rather than the dogmas of any sect or party ; who aim rather to ren- 
der their own services unnecessary, than to restrain, for any selfish 
end, a free access to the truth. 

Such are some of the uses of Object Teaching in the broad and 
true sense of the term. That any faultless system can be devised 
to carry it out, we may not hope. That all persons will be equally 
successful in practising it, is too much to expect. That something 
called Object Teaching has been tried and failed, as, with the 
methods employed, it ought to do, no one denies. That some have 
pursued a kind of Object Teaching, and have met with indifferent 
success, is also conceded. It should never be the only exercise of 
the school-room. It should never displace regular work, but 
rather become a part of it. It should give life and zest to it. It 
should never be made a hobby, or carried to an extreme. It should 
never be used as an end. On this point Mr. Pickard, a member 
of the committee, says : — 

(1.) " I fear that Object Teaching, as generally conducted, looks rather to imme- 
diate than to less showy, but more valuable, results. 

(2.) " Its tendency, unless very carefully checked, is to make of children passive 
recipients, while teachers talk more than they instruct. 

(3.) " Carefully used, it will awaken to new thought, and will encourage to the 
mastery of difficulties suggested or rather thrown in the way of pupils. But 
only master minds can so use it. Not every school teacher has the power of 
Agassiz. 

(4.) " And yet the nature of the child demands such teaching, and will not be 
satisfied without it, though not by any means, as I conceive, to the exclusion of other 
methods of teaching. Object Teaching is very good ; but if it have no object, it is 
thenceforth good for nothing but to be trodden under foot of men." 

Again, object lessons should not be allowed to fall into a mere 
routine, or to follow implicitly the models of some text book, and 
not the leadings of the subject in question, gathering inspiration 
from some incidental circumstance which may change the shape of 
the lesson. They may often be made more apt and opportune by 
some occurrence, as a thunder storm/ or the presence of some 
impressive scene. They should be varied with every vary- 
ing occasion, varied in form, varied in matter, varied in the 



20 OBJECT TEACHING. 

manner of giving them, and cease as formal exercises whenever 
the pupil can draw thoughts skilfully and successfully from the 
abstract statements of a text book. 

There remains yet one subject to be considered. Shall children 
never begin with the abstract ? Shall they never commit to mem- 
ory forms which are beyond their comprehension ? These are fair 
questions, and should be candidly and fairly answered. 

We will not say, that in no case should such matter be commit- 
ted to memory. It has been the practice for ages. Able and dis- 
tinguished educators have advocated it. The custom of requiring 
simple memoriter recitations prevails in many of our schools. Shall 
it continue ? Or shall all intelligent and earnest educators enter 
upon an important reform in this direction ? 

The most strenuous advocates of this kind of teaching do not 
claim that for intellectual purposes abstract statements are of any 
material value till explained or illustrated, or till the mind of the 
learner has grown up to them. They readily admit that, while 
borne in mind by mere force of memory as words, they can yield 
no immediate fruit. But they claim — 

1. That such work furnishes the children something to do in the 
way oi private or soUlary study between the hours of recitation, and 
does much towards establishing early habits of study. 

2. That the very act of committing to memory is a good discipline 
for that faculty. 

3. That the terse and well-considered statements of a good text 
book are better than any that the learner can substitute, and are, 
therefore, good models of the use of language. 

4. That, if held in the memory sufficiently long, these statements 
will at length yield up their meaning, at first faintly, later along 
more clearly, and finally with their full significance and breadth 
of meaning. 

5. That they are ever furnishing the child, ready at hand, sub- 
jects for an intellectual struggle, being results which minds more 
mature than his have reached by processes of thought to which he 
should always aspire. 

6. That the power to utter forms of thought at present not com- 
prehended inspires in the learner a most salutary habit of paying 
due deference to authority ; of looking with veneration — even 



OBJECT TEACHING. 21 

reverence — upon the productions of the gifted minds both of our 
own times and of the distant past, and that there can be no better 
cure for flippancy and self-conceit. 

To consider these points, which we hope have been fairly stated, 
and to which we are inclined to give due weight, let us resume the 
subject of conceptions or concepts, partially examined in a previous 
part of this report. 

When all the parts, attributes, marks, or qualities, etc., which 
make up an individual object, are brought together into one whole, 
we have a concept only in its depth or intention. If we give it a 
name, — which for the present shall apply to this one object alone, — 
the name calls up the conception, and we realize it by its form and 
image. Let us call it a concrete concept. At an early period the 
faculty of comparison is called into exercise. The understanding 
begins to elaborate the material which the perceptive faculty has 
received. The terrier with which the child has played so often 
resembles others which he meets, in so many particulars, that he 
instinctively applies the term terrier to each and all which bear the 
characteristic marks of this species. But to do this, he has sacrificed 
so many individual characteristics, such as/orin, size, color, etc., that 
the concept thus extended has lost its power of presenting to the 
eye of the mind any individual of the species, and must continue 
so until to some 07ie of the class the mind restores all the marks, 
qualities, or characteristics which have been taJcen away — that is, 
abstracted — from it. It extends to many individuals, but has 
deprived each of many characteristic marks. The concept or concep- 
tion, thus considered, may be called abstract, and cannot be realized 
hy form or image as before. 

But the work of abstraction does not stop here. Deprive this 
concept of a few of its marks, do the same with that of the span- 
iel, the hou7id, the mastiff, the ^lointer, etc., and the remaining marks 
unite in one higher concept embracing 'each species directly, and 
each individual indirectly, and thus we have the one concept of 
concepts, called dog. In a similar manner we rise to the higher 
concept carnivora ; still higher to mammalia ; and so on to animal ; 
till at length we end in thins; or belntr. And here we have an 
abstract concept of the highest order. Now it is perfectly obvious 
that, at every stage of advancement in this hierarchy of concepts, 



22 OBJECT TEACHING. 

what is gained in one direction is lost in the other. At every 
stage the concept is more difficult to be realized. Almost any child 
would shrink from the attempt to ascend the scale. And yet how 
often children must use such terms as being, science, art, etc., if 
they learn the definitions contained in books ! 

Now in the judgment of mature minds it is the peculiar merit 
of a text book or treatise, that it is comprehensive ; that is, that its 
terms are so abstract as to embrace the whole subject. And to a 
thoroughly disciplined mind, the test of an author's skill is his 
nice adjustment of these abstract terms. Hence you hear the com- 
mendation : "I admire the comprehensiveness of his rules and 
definitions." This is a commendation for any text book. And 
that which makes it so good for the scholar is what makes it so 
bad for the child. He commits the beautifully comprehensive 
terms to the memory, but nothing to the understanding, simply 
because he has never been able to ascend the lofty scale of 
abstractions sufficiently high to reach the meaning. 

All philosophy unites in condemning the practice of descending 
with children so deep into concrete forms as to draw out distinc- 
tions and terms which belong to science. Such work should be 
postponed. 

What philosophy is that which would bid a child pass to the 
other extreme, and bear in his memory for years the names of con- 
ceptions which can be realized only by ascending through a contin- 
ued series of abstractions ? 

The true philosophy would seem to be to begin with the con- 
crete forms around us, and while we should be careful on the one 
hand not to penetrate too deep in our search of individual attri- 
butes and characteristics, we should be equally careful, on the other 
hand, not to rise too high into the regions of abstract thought, but 
advance in both directions as the growing capacities of the learner 
will admit. 

With this aspect of our conceptions, let us examine the several 
arguments for committing to memory abstract statements, as yet not 
understood. 

That the committing to memory of such statements does furnish 
employment for the children, all will admit. That the employment 
is a good one, is not so clear. Yet it is better than none, — always 



OBJECT TEACHING. X6 

preferable to unmitigated idleness. Ragged and hungry children 
had better be employed in providing food and clothing for their 
prospective wants at the period of maturity rather than be allowed 
to roam the streets without occupation. But in looking upon their 
present pressing needs, you could but exclaim at the misfortune 
of their lot, when all around them the most attracting fields, with 
rewards for present use, were inviting them to labor. So it is in 
school. Children may be fully occupied upon concrete forms 
which are fitted for present use, will contribute to their intel- 
lectual growth, and will give zest and enjoyment at the same time, 
and aid them in rising to the simpler abstractions. 

As to the second argument, that the act of committing to memory 
even words is an exercise of the memory. We admit it, but can- 
not call it a good one. How much better the exercise would be, if 
at the same time the thoughts were understood ; how much more 
readily the memory would retain the expressions themselves ; how 
much more philosophical and natural the associations ; how much 
more healthful the habits which would ensue ; and how needless 
the practice when the children can just as well be required to com- 
mit what they understand ! 

In respect to the cultivation of language, enough has already 
been said. No more unphilosophical or ineffectual method could 
be adopted than to force upon the memory even the choicest 
expressions, if they convey no thought. 

It is true that mere expressions may be retained in the memory, 
— and it is also true that they may, after a time, yield their appro- 
priate meaning, — but admitting this, how much better it would 
be for children to commit to memory what they can understand, 
what will administer to their present growth ! Besides, the habits 
of retaining in the mind undigested expressions has, in one respect, 
a most pernicious effect. The mind becomes hardened into a state 
of intellectual indifference as to the meaning of words — a kind of 
mental dyspepsia which it is extremely difficult to eradicate. Then, 
again, instead of faint glimmerings of the true meaning, children 
are quite as apt to attach to abstract expressions fanciful, inappro- 
priate or absurd significations, which haunt and annoy them up to 
mature life. In all this we refer to expressions wholly beyond 
their capacity. 



24 OBJECT TEACHING. 

The time will come when children must deal with abstract thought 
presented in text books ; when instead of passing from objects to 
terms, from verities to statements, the order must be reversed ; they 
must interpret terms, verify statements ; in other words, draw 
thoughts from books. And this is an important part of school 
training. If wisely arranged, their studies will lie within their 
reach. The thoughts, though abstract, will not be found so high 
in the scale of conceptions as to be wholly beyond their capacity 
— though higher it may be than they have as yet ascended. Shall 
they commit the statements of such thoughts to memory ? That 
is, in preparing their lessons from books, if some passages shall not 
be understood at the time, shall they, notwithstanding, be learned 
for discussion at the time of recitation ? 

In many cases we should most certainly say, yes ; not because, 
intrinsically, it is always the best thing for the learner, but from 
the necessities of the case, and because the struggle for possible 
thought, with the assurance that ultimate victory is near at hand, 
is always salutary. And here the skilful teacher will hold the 
problem before the learner in such a way that the relief itself 
shall be the reward of effort ; and this leads directly to the answer 
of the fifth point. The struggle will be healthful only when 
the thought is within the pupil's reach. Otherwise, it will lead to 
discouragement or utter prostration. 

We come now to consider a point which is strongly urged, es- 
pecially by those of a conservative tendency, — namely, that the 
masterly thoughts of gifted minds, even though not understood, 
have the beneficial effect of inspiring reverence for standard author- 
ity, and in checking shallowness and conceit. Be it so. These 
are qualities that should receive the teacher's attention ; the one to 
be cultivated, the other suppressed. Every teacher should watch 
with jealous care all moral developments. But in a question of 
intellectual culture let us not suffer any incidental issue to turn our 
thoughts from the main question. 

Children and adults will, on all sides, come in contact with both 
the uncomprehended and the incomprehensible. Providence has 
placed us in the midst of the vast and the sublimely great. We can- 
not avoid being awe-struck and humbled. If, nevertheless, the 
young will persist in their conceits, administer whole pages of But- 



OBJECT TEACHING. 25 

lers's Analogy, but do it, just as a physician administers colchicum, 
for the purpose of depletion, — not to promote growth. In the 
processes of teaching the young to comprehend thought, we should 
never sacrifice time and strength by beginning with the highly 
abstract and difficult. The principles on this point have already 
been laid down. 

We come now to the final question : — Does the plan pursued 
at Oswego conform to these general principles ? 

We answer unhesitatingly — in the main it does. It may not 
be right in all its philosophy, or in all its practice. Whether the 
practice is better than the philosophy, or the philosophy than the 
practice, we will not pretend to say. Neither is it our object or 
purpose to appear as champions of the system, to defend it against 
attacks, or to cover up what is faulty. We simply appear to report 
It, and our opinions upon it, so far as the examinations of one 
week will enable us to do. 
^ But what is the Oswego system ? The schools of the city — a 
city of some twenty-three thousand inhabitants, — are divided into 
four grades,— Primary, Junior, Senior, and High, — correspond- 
ing to the Primary, Secondary or Intermediate, Grammar, and 
High schools of other cities. Besides these grades, there is an un- 
classified school continued through the year, to meet the wants of 
pupils who are not well adapted to the graded schools ; and yet 
another kept in winter, to accommodate those who can attend only 
during that season. Each grade is subdivided into classes named 
in the order of rank from the lowest, C, B, A. Something like the 
object system was introduced in 1859. But in 1861, these pecu- 
liar features were more fully developed. Previous to the last date, 
the schools were in session six hours per day. Since that time 
the daily sessions have been shortened one hour in all the schools. 
The peculiar system called the " object system " was introduced 
at first into only the Primary grade. In 1861, it had gained so 
much favor with the School Board, that a Training School was estab- 
lished under the direction of Miss Jones, from the Home and Colo- 
nial Institution, London. At present the system has reached the 
Junior schools, and now prevails throughout the two lower grades. 
The Training School, which forms a prominent feature of the svs- 
tem, IS at present established in the Fourth Ward school building 



^6 OBJECT TEACHING. 

Besides the Training School, this building contains a city Primary 
with its classes A, B, C, — a Junior A, B, C, and a Senior A, B, 
C. Each Primary and each Junior school throughout the city is 
provided with a permanent principal and permanent assistant for 
each of the classes. In the Fourth Ward schools, however, 
only one assistant is permanently appointed. The place of the sec- 
ond assistant is supplied from the Training School. The exercises 
in these two grades are the same throughout the city — except in 
the building of the Training School, where additional exercises, here- 
after to be described, are introduced. In this building, then, we 
shall find the ordinary lessons in " Object Teaching " as well as the 
peculiar lessons of the Training School. Let us enter any Primary 
school at the beginning of the year, with the C class at the age of 
five, fresh from home life, for the first time to enter upon school 
duties. They come with their slates and pencils — and this is all. 
Their first exercise is not to face the alphabet arranged in vertical 
or horizontal column, and echo the names of the letters after the 
teacher in response to the question, — " What is that ? " — a ques- 
tion the teacher knows they cannot answer, and, therefore, ought 
not to ask. But some familiar object, one of the boys of the class, 
it may be, is placed before them, and called upon to raise his hand 
— the class do the same. This is beginning with the known. 
Then he is called upon to raise his right hand. This may be an 
advance into the obscurely known ; the class do the same if they 
can make the proper distinction ; if not, the first lesson marks clear- 
ly the distinction between the right hand and the left. Something 
real and tangible is done. The children can now distinguish 
between the right ear and the left ear, the right eye and the left 
eye. Here is acquired knowledge ajiplied. 

But what of their slates ? The teacher may first give a lesson 
— practical of course — on the use of the slate and pencil. Stand- 
ing at the black board, she utters the sound represented by some 
letter, as t. The class utters it. They repeat it, till the sound 
becomes a distinct object to the ear. She then prints upon the 
board the letter t. This becomes an object to the eye. She points 
to it and gives the sound — they repeat the sound. She points 
again, they repeat. She gives the sound, they point. Two objects 
are associated. Now in their seats the letter t is to be made upon 



OBJECT TEACHING. 27 

their slates till the next lesson is given. In this second lesson an 
advance is made upon the parts of the hnman body, or another 
sound — as the short sound of a is given, then the character as 
before. Now the two sounds are put together — then the two 
letters. Two objects are combined, and we have the word at. But 
before this lesson is given, the children go through with a series 
of physical exercises. Perhaps, next, the whole class is sent to the 
sides of the room. Here is a narrow shelf, answering both as a 
table and a ledge to the black board. Under this are apartments 
containing beans. The children take them one by one and count. 
They arrange them in sets of two or three, etc. They unite one 
and one, that is, bean to bean, — one and two, etc. They take away 
one from two, one from three, and so on. They now return to 
their seats and make marks upon their slates, to take the place of 
the beans. In short this Primary room is a busy workshop — not 
one idle moment. 

One year is passed in this manner. The children have learned 
many useful lessons ; have mastered a set of Reading Cards — have 
learned to spell many words involving the short sounds of the 
vowels and most of the consonants. They have lessons on form 
and color, on place and size; on drawing, or moral conduct; 
and these are changed once in two weeks. 

They are now promoted to the B class. They commence read- 
ing from the primer. They can write upon their slates and form 
tables. They have Object lessons more difficult and more inter- 
esting. They can read the statement of the facts developed as they 
are drawn off upon the board. They can write them themselves. 
They now learn to make their own record of facts upon their slates. 
Their written work is examined and criticised. They read their 
own statements, and do it with ease and naturalness, because the 
thoughts are their own. They learn to represent numbers with 
figures. They make out numerical tables for addition and sub- 
traction, not by copying, but by actual combinations with beans or 
3therwise. They thus realize these tables. In short, a mingling 
of Object lessons with writing, spelling, reading, singing, physical 
exercise, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, elementary 
geography, and natural history, occupies their attention through 
the first three years. All the lessons are given objectively. The 



28 OBJECT TEACHING. 

children realize what they learn ; and this is not the mere theory of 
the system, it is, in the main, the actual working of the plan. 
The schools are not all equally good. The teachers are not all 
equally imbued with the spirit of the system. There were fail- 
ures. There were misconceptions of the objects aimed at, and 
misconceptions of the method of reaching it. There were given 
lessons which were superior — even brilliant. Others were fair 
— perhaps moderate. 

In the junior grade, similar, but more advanced lessons are 
given, until the pupils are prepared for the senior schools, where 
these peculiar characteristics cease. As to the time occupied by 
these peculiar lessons, — or general exercises, — it should be said 
that two exercises per day are given of from fifteen to thirty 
minutes each in the Primary schools, and one only in the junior. 
And yet be it remembered that all the exercises in the ordinary 
school work are intended to be true object lessons. 

Let us now pass to the Training school. Here, it should be borne 
in mind, are regular Primary and Junior schools under permanent 
teachers, who act the part both of model teachers and critics before 
the members of the Normal school — or Training class. The 
members of this class become alternately pupils and teachers, 
known under the name of pupil-teachers. At the beginning of the 
term they are assigned to act as assistants one half day and as pupils 
the other, alternating with each other during the term, so that each 
may go through every exercise. The regular teacher gives a les- 
son to the class. The assistants observe and mark the methods as 
models for imitation both as respects the steps in the lesson, and 
the management of the class under instruction. One of the assist- 
ants — a pupil-teacher — next gives a lesson. She is now under a 
double criticism, first from her equals — the other pupil-teachers 
present ; and second, from the regular teacher. She is not doing 
fictitious, but real teaching. She has not first to imagine that a 
class of adults is a class of children, and then she is to give a 
specimen lesson. Nor has she a class of specimen children. 
She has a class of children sent to school for real purposes, by 
parents who entertain other views than to have their sons and 
daughters made mere subjects for experimenting. 

There is work under the feeling of responsibility, with all the 



OBJECT TEACHING. £9 

natural desire to succeed -nay, to excel. Under these circum- 

::rLtnTr '^"^"" '''-' '-- ^^^^ '- ^-^ -^^ 

The superiority of this plan over any other for Normal training 
IS obvious. Some of these pupil-teachers evinced great presence 
of mmd and no little skill. "" piesence 

But now the scene changes; these pupil-teachers return to the 

room of the traming class, and their places are supplied by the 

retiring set. In this room the theory of teaching is discussed, and 

xemplified by practical lessons given by the Normal teachers to 

Td s Tr f " '^°"^'^ '" '^^" ^^^ P"--T or Junior 
.lades. rhese lessons are to be drawn off by the class and exam- 
ined a illustrations of the theory. Then, again, a pupil is called 
upon to give a lesson to a similar class- while both the trainino- 
class and teacher act as critics. The points of excellence and of 
defect are freely discussed, and practical hints as to the method of 
the lesson, its effect upon the class, etc., etc., are freely given. 
Under this kind of training, a most efficient corps of teachers is 
prepared to fill all vacancies, and give increased vitality to the 
schools throughout the city. 

The system has been modified from time to time as new sugges- 
tions have come up, or as theoretic plans have been tested. Farther 
experience will undoubtedly result in other changes. 

The lessons in the English language had some points of great 



merit 



The habit of writing exercises by all the pupils every hour of the 
day cannot fail to secure ease of expression with the pen. And with 
the incessant care that is practised at the outset by the teachers to 
secure neatness and order in the writing, correctness in the use of 
capitals and punctuation marks, accuracy of expression, and faultless 
spel ing, IS laying a most excellent foundation for a hi^h order of 
scholarship. 

The_ opportunity for cultivating correct habits of conversation 
which IS afforded during the object lessons does more than any other 
one thing to promote a good use of language in speaking. The chil- 
dren are uttering living thought, and not text-book language. T heir 
own habits of using words come out conspicuously, and are made 
subjects of cultivation. 



30 OBJECT TEACHING. 

The more formal lessons in language were in the main admirably 
conducted. Here the teacher made use of objects present, or the 
conceptions of familiar objects absent, and accepted for the time any 
or all of the various expressions employed by the pupils to enume- 
rate their ideas of the same action or event. Then came the ques- 
tion of a final choice among them all. A box was moved along the 
table, and the children gave, " The box moves, is pushed, is shoved, 
slides, etc." A very large majority chose the expression " slides.^' 

Occasionally, the sentences and forms of expression had a bookish 
aspect, and lacked spontaneousness ; and there were enough of these, 
if captiously seized upon to make the method appear ridiculous. 
So again expressions and terms wese sometimes evolved, which 
would not be out of place in a scientific treatise. These were 
accepted of course. But if used too frequently they would seem 
like the coat of a young man placed upon a mere boy. 

These, however, at most were but spots on the face of the sun. 
The whole plan was admirable in theory and in practice. 

The spelling exercises were multiplied and varied. They had 
regular spelling lessons. They wrote words upon the slate. 
They wrote on the board. They spelled orally for the teacher 
when she wrote, and they spelled on all occasions. 

On the whole, the view which Mr. Camp, the Supt. of Public 
Schools for the State of Connecticut, a member of this Com- 
mittee, gives of his observations on Object Teaching, were fully con- 
firmed here. He says : — " Having had an opportunity to observe 
the methods pursued in Object Teaching in Boston, Mass., Oswego, 
N. Y., Patterson, N. J., and at Toronto and Montreal, Canada, 
and in connection with other methods in some other places, I will, 
at your request, give the results, as they appeared to me. When 
ever this system has been confined to elementary instruction, and 
has been employed by skilful, thorough teachers in unfolding and 
disciplining the faculties, in fixing the attention, and awakening 
thought, it has been successful. Pupils trained under this system 
have evinced more of quickness and accuracy of perception, care- 
ful observation, and a correctness of judgnient which results from 
accurate discrimination, and proper comparisons. They have 
seemed much better acquainted with the works of nature, and 
better able to understand allusions to nature, art, and social life, as 



OBJECT TEACHING. 31 

found in books. But when ' Object Lessons ' have been made 
to^ supplant the use of books in higher instruction, or when 
scientific knowledge has been the principal object sought in these 
lessons, the system has not been successful, so far as I have been 
able to observe the results." 

^ In conclusion, it should be said, that it is no small commenda- 
tion of the system, that all the ground formerly gone over in the 
two lower grades is accomplished now in the same time, and that 
in daily sessions of five hours instead of six. The plan renders 
school life to the little children far less irksome than before. The 
teachers generally, who have adopted and practised it, give it their 
unqualified approval. The Board of Education and their intelli- 
gent and indefatigable Superintendent see no cause to return 
to the old methods, but, on the contrary, are more and more 
pleased with its practical working. That the citizens of a town, in 
former years, not specially noted for literary or educational progress, 
should from year to year sustain and encourage it, nay, take an 
honest pride in increasing the facilities for carrying it forward, is 
proof positive that it has intrinsic merit. And finally, that the 
State of New York should make ample provision to support its 
Training School, shows that the thinking men of the State see 
in the system something more than mere tinsel and outward 
show. 



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021 772 128 3 



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